


Pas de Deux: Fourth

by astrid_fischer



Series: pas de deux [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, WARNING for mention of past self-harm, ballet!au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrid_fischer/pseuds/astrid_fischer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eponine is trying to establish how much of a chance R might have with Enjolras, Combeferre walks her home, there is dancing, sprinklers interrupt, and Eponine has a choice to make.</p>
<p>**WARNING for past self-harm/implied abuse!**</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pas de Deux: Fourth

Eponine’s packing up her sheet music, and Enjolras bumps her hip with his own on his way out the door in a goodbye. She flicks him in the small of the back, and he only laughs while she shakes her head after him.

Thank God that Enjolras is Enjolras, and had elected to ignore the highly awkward situation he’d walked into three days earlier outside the music building.

She’d tried to broach the subject with him, right afterward, because she couldn’t stop thinking of the horrified look on Grantaire’s face, like something desperately important had shattered to pieces in front of him. Enjolras had just shaken his head and shooed her to the piano.

Now it’s eight o’clock, half a week later, and the dancers have all gone home for the night except for Combeferre, who’s swapping out his dance shoes for black Toms in the corner.

It’s just the two of them in the studio, because it’s only Enjolras, Combeferre, and Cosette who practice together most of the time and Cosette had cut out early to get ready for dinner with Marius (who had texted Eponine brightly half an hour ago to make sure she was still coming).

She had wanted so badly to text back _no_ , just once. To text back _fuck you, Marius, seriously, fuck you_.

But it isn’t his fault he’s oblivious, and it isn’t Cosette’s fault she’s the loveliest person Eponine has ever met, and Eponine’s sense of emotional self-preservation is basically nonexistent, so she had only replied _see you there, loser_.

Combeferre is zipping up his duffel bag now, slinging it over his shoulder. By unspoken agreement, she’s waiting for him.

“Can I ask you something?” Eponine asks into the quiet, tapping her forefinger against the shiny black top of the baby grand. She takes the brief inclination of his head as consent.

She grabs her backpack off the piano bench and moves towards the doorway as he straightens up. “Has Enjolras…mentioned anything?”

Combeferre raises one eyebrow and flicks off the light switch, casting the studio into darkness behind them as they continue out into the hallway. “I admit I don’t entirely know what to do with that question.”

Eponine grins. “About last week,” she elaborates. “When I couldn’t make it to his practice?” She shrugs in a way she hopes looks nonchalant. “He’s been sort of weird, and I wanted to check he wasn’t mad at me or something.”

He regards her with quiet amusement. “You want to know if he said anything about the guy you had fill in for you.”

Eponine assumes her most innocent look. “Since you brought it up.”

“He hasn’t,” the dancer tells her, with half a smile. And Eponine’s shoulders sag in defeat, but Combeferre adds, “Then again, Enjolras and I haven’t had time yet for our weekly chat about his feelings.”

Eponine sighs. She’d known it was a long shot, because Enjolras plays things pretty close to the vest, but she’d thought _maybe_ , since Combeferre’s his closest friend. “Can I ask a personal question? About Enjolras, I mean?”

“Of course,” he says, still in that steady way which makes her positive he’s teasing her and at the same time unable to figure out how. “Answering personal questions about other people is my favorite hobby.”

He stands back to let her go through the doorway down into the stairwell first. He’s changed out of his rehearsal outfit and is back in sweatpants, a black undershirt, and a half-zipped grey hoodie. He’s got his glasses back on, and as she glances over at him she takes a moment to think that damn, but he looks good in glasses.

She glances around as if Enjolras might be lurking somewhere on the stairs waiting to strangle her before asking, “Does Enjolras like guys?”

He raises his eyebrows at her, and Eponine shrugs unapologetically. Tact is overrated.

“His sexuality is another subject which Enjolras and I have notably _not_ discussed at length,” Combeferre says.

“Could you hazard a guess?” Eponine asks. “It’s important.”

He regards her for a moment. “I don’t have to guess,” he says. “Whoever he likes, he likes your friend.”

“So he _did_ say something?” Eponine demands at once, because she’s not going to get Grantaire’s hopes up for nothing.

“No,” Combeferre says, and she narrows her eyes at him as they reach the bottom of the stairs and he pushes open the outside door. She thinks he’s actually enjoying being deliberately unhelpful.

She shifts from one foot to the other while she waits for him to close and lock the main door, and she’s about to pester him for more information when he says over one shoulder, “He hasn’t said anything, but he’s been terrible the past couple days. Mind you, terrible for Enjolras is still better than most of us.”

He tucks the key back into his pocket and they start off across the grass to get to the main path back to the dormitories. Combeferre is in a different dorm than Eponine, but he’s been walking with her at least as far as the path the past few nights.

“Terrible?” she asks, uncomprehending.

“In rehearsal. He was excellent the day after you were sick, and then after his run-in with your truly alarming friends—which he hasn’t talked about either, before you ask—he was distracted.”

“He was distracted,” Eponine echoes, and she can feel the grin spreading over her face now.

Because they both know that Enjolras doesn’t get distracted. Not normally, not by anything.

Combeferre merely nods again, but there’s a hint of a smile playing about his lips too, and Eponine feels like punching the air.

“Hold on a sec,” she says, pausing to dig her phone out of her bag. She’s in the middle of typing a hasty message to Grantaire consisting mostly of caps lock and a lot of exclamation points when her phone buzzes, and she grimaces at the caller ID before throwing Combeferre an apologetic look and answering.

“Marius? Yes, you spaz, I told you I’d be there. I—how did you possibly do that? Didn’t you just have your wallet to pay the parking attendant?”

Marius informs her mournfully that he did, but that he doesn’t know what’s become of it in the meantime, and Eponine sighs and tells him to check his jacket pocket, no, not that one, the inner one, and Marius exclaims happily into the phone and Eponine rolls her eyes.

He thanks her profusely and calls her his hero, and she says _yeah, yeah_ and hangs up, trying to keep her expression unbothered. “Sorry, Cosette’s boyfriend, he’d lose his own arms if they weren’t attached.”

When she turns back to Combeferre he’s gazing at her thoughtfully. Or not at her, so much as at her upturned wrist where she’s still holding the phone.

It’s a warm night, so her cardigan is balled up at the bottom of her backpack, and her cut-up tank top doesn’t cover all that much. The raised lines along her inner arm (faded and years-old, but still prominent) are very visible under the light cast from the streetlamp above. And Eponine, who doesn’t ever try to hide the scars, stares back at him defiantly.

Grantaire had known first, of course.

He’d asked outright, because he was Grantaire. It was the only time she’d cried when telling someone. It was freshman year and they were on the flat roof of the art building, legs dangling down into nothing, and she’d told him about her father and her mother and her little brother, and how she spent most of her time being afraid for Gavroche because he was still in that house with them.

She knows Enjolras knows, but he’d never said anything. She knows he knows, because she hardly ever wears long sleeves and they spend a lot of time together in the studio and he’s not oblivious. He’s never said anything, and she knows him well enough by now to know that it’s out of kindness, not indifference.

Courfeyrac had hugged her. It was raining out, and it was the middle of the night and she’d gone down the hall in her boxer shorts and tank top to curl up in Courf’s bed (she was looking for Grantaire, because she had only known Courfeyrac for a few weeks at that point, but Grantaire was out).

He’d let her wear his favorite oversized sweater and listened to her talk, and then he’d hugged her and told her that he was sorry, and he knew that wasn’t enough. And she’d whispered back to him that no, it was exactly enough.

They’d fallen asleep (and Courfeyrac had not even once tried to put his hands anywhere he shouldn’t) and Grantaire’s outrage in the morning when he’d found them curled up together had been absolutely worth it.

Feuilly had only flinched. He was choosing between cherry and raspberry toaster strudels in the freezer section, listing the pros and cons of each, and Eponine had reached over in exasperation to grab the blue box out of his left hand, and he’d noticed.

She’d seen the comprehension flicker across his face, the way his grey eyes suddenly held a sorrow so deep she’d slipped her hand into his and squeezed reassuringly, to let him know that it wasn’t fine but it was okay, and she was still here.

Bahorel hadn’t flinched at all. He’d noticed when they were studying in the library (well, she was texting Marius and he was playing Angry Birds on Courfeyrac’s “borrowed” iPhone, but there were definitely books somewhere on the table) and he’d groaned loudly and she’d looked up, startled, and asked him what was wrong.

He’d nodded his head towards the scars, visible where she’d just rolled up the sleeves of her striped sweater, and told her that this meant she was officially braver than he was and he was _never_ going to fucking live it down. And she’d laughed, a sudden, disbelieving laugh about something she never thought she would laugh about.

When Jehan had found out, he’d cried. They’d been sitting in the grass outside the campus café, and he’d unbraided his hair to tug the brightly colored ribbons out. He’d tied them around each of her wrists instead, winding the silk around and around, like bandages, like armor. She’s worn them every day since.

But she doesn’t wear them when she’s playing, and she hadn’t bothered to retie them before leaving the studio tonight.

Combeferre takes a step forward, so that he’s right in front of her, and raises his eyes to hers as if for permission. She swallows, throat suddenly dry, and inclines her head.

He takes both of her hands gently in his, palms-up, and examines the scars. He runs one thumb over the sensitive inner skin of her left wrist, and she closes her eyes but doesn’t jerk away, the way she would with most people.

It’s a sign of something, maybe, that she doesn’t want to.

He gazes steadily down at the raised marks, without flinching, without any trace of horror or pity or judgment. And that’s a new one for her.

“I know, I know,” she says, with a forced laugh. “Walking disaster, right?”

“No,” he says. Eponine can feel her cheeks grow warm with the way he’s looking at her. She doesn’t really know what to do with the fact that he says the single word with more certainty than she’s ever heard anyone say anything.

“Would you like to dance with me?” he asks next.

And Eponine looks up at him in surprise, because that’s a new one too.

“Here?” she asks, because they’re on the campus lawn by the ugly-ass music building, near one of the benches carved so thoroughly with overlapping initials that it’s impossible to read any of them and a guttering streetlamp.

“Here,” he says, and slides his duffel bag to the damp grass and holds out his hand.

“I can’t dance,” she tells him.

“Anyone can dance.”

“Do you have any _idea_ how annoying it is to be told that by an elite ballet dancer?” she asks wryly, putting one hand on her hip, but he’s grinning now, and _wow_ , but he should do that more often.

She rolls her eyes, but she feels a smile tugging at the corners of her own lips as she shrugs off her backpack and takes his hand.

He slides his other arm around her waist, and somehow makes it seem like the most natural thing in the world. She doesn’t even have time to feel uncomfortable before he’s guiding her through the steps.

He leads, moving slowly and tapping her foot with his own to get her to move it back, and then to the right, and so on until she’s got it down, more or less, and then they’re dancing (and is this a waltz?).

“Cosette is a good person,” he remarks, apropos of nothing, and Eponine looks up at him sharply but keeps moving her feet in accord with his. “I never said she wasn’t.”

“She’s a good person,” he goes on, “so she won’t be upset if you don’t go to dinner. She’ll understand.”

Eponine closes her eyes briefly at the quiet implication in his words. “Am I that obvious?” she asks after a moment.

He shrugs one shoulder, which she takes as a kind way of saying “well, yes.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to see her,” Eponine starts, and Combeferre says simply, “I know. She knows, too.”

And that seems to be all he has to say, and it’s all that needs to be said, really. “I’m going to spin you,” he informs her, and she nods. He twirls her around, not letting go of her as she spins and nearly loses her balance and laughs, her clear, happy laugh.

Her face is flushed and she grabs onto him to steady herself, and their eyes meet and for some reason her breath catches in her throat.

He’s very close, and he smells pleasantly of coffee, and so it takes her a moment to be aware of the faint hissing sound from nearby, faint but growing louder. Eponine realizes what that means a split second before the sprinkler system comes on all over the lawn.

Eponine shrieks as the nearest sprinkler douses them both, a sudden shock of cold water, and she dives for her backpack and Combeferre gets his duffel bag and she grabs his hand to pull him onward until they reach the main path and stop there, dripping wet. They’re both laughing, and a bicyclist going past gives them a look like he thinks they’re insane.

Eponine’s glad she’s got a bandeau on under her white tank top, because she’s soaked through. Her jeans are sodden and heavy, clinging to her legs uncomfortably, and her leather ankle boots are definitely going to pay the price for this.

She glances over at Combeferre, and her flippant complaint dies on her lips.

The dancer is dripping water and his wet undershirt is clinging to the planes of his hard torso in a way that should probably be illegal as he checks that the contents of his bag aren’t damaged. He pulls his glasses off, grimaces at the fact that he has nothing dry to wipe them off on, and tucks them into the outside pocket of his duffel in defeat.

Then he seems to notice her eyes on him, and he straightens up, smiling wryly. “I suppose that’s what we get for impromptu dancing.”

Eponine manages with difficulty to tear her gaze away from the way water is running in rivulets down his arms. “Worth it.” So very, _very_ worth it.

There’s something impossibly warm in his eyes now. He steps forward and lifts a hand up to push bedraggled strands of hair out of her eyes, slowly, as if giving her the chance to pull away. She doesn’t, and his fingers trail ever so lightly down the curve of her jaw.

His brown eyes don’t once look away from hers. She shivers, and it’s definitely not all from the cold.

And then he’s slid an arm back around her waist and her heartbeat is frenetic (and she isn’t actually sure if it’s hers or his, they’re so close), and she looks up at him, blinking away water droplets as they cling to her eyelashes.

She doesn’t know how this has happened, how they’ve suddenly stumbled into a very different moment from the previous one, a moment where she’s captivated by the curve of his lips and the way water beads off his skin and the feel of his hand splayed over her lower back.

His hand on her face slides around to the back of her neck, and he’s pulling her forward and she’s letting him, and she can feel his breath ghosting over her lips. She forgets to breathe.

“Don’t go to dinner,” he says. Her eyes snap open again.

“What?” she asks, disoriented because she feels very much like he should be kissing her right now and the fact that he isn’t, the fact that his lips are still only inches away from hers, makes her feel like she’s been robbed of something she hadn’t even known she wanted until right now.

And he smiles, a slow, brilliant smile that makes something flutter in her stomach. He smiles down at her, his eyes dark and his proximity making it difficult for her to form coherent words.

Eponine realizes that even though she’s dated some really questionable guys in the past, she’s never, _ever_ been in as much trouble as she is now.

Then Combeferre lets go of her and she almost stumbles. He bends gracefully to collect his duffel bag. “Don’t go to dinner,” he says again, “and call me tomorrow.”

Eponine stares at him because he must be joking, because there’s _no fucking way_ he’s really going to leave it at that. But he only smiles at her and turns to start down the path to his own dormitory, and she realizes that yes, he really is.

For a moment she just stands there, stunned, and watches him walk away with one hand still gripping the strap of her backpack.

Then: “You are a _terrible human being_ ,” she yells furiously after him. She can hear his laughter floating back on the night air.


End file.
